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| 1 | +--- |
| 2 | +layout: post |
| 3 | +title: A Last Hurrah For JRuby 1.6 |
| 4 | +author: Charles Oliver Nutter |
| 5 | +email: headius@headius.com |
| 6 | +--- |
| 7 | + |
| 8 | +Summer is wrapping up and the JRuby team is busy putting the finishing touches on |
| 9 | +JRuby 1.7, our next major release. How major? It has taken us almost 1.5 years to |
| 10 | +get to this point. That's major. |
| 11 | + |
| 12 | +Of course, we weren't sitting on our hands that whole time. For about 8 months |
| 13 | +after the release of JRuby 1.6 last year, we continued putting out point releases |
| 14 | +to catch bugs, improve Ruby 1.9 support, and fix performance and concurrency |
| 15 | +issues you faithful JRuby users reported. Even as late as the waning days of 2011, |
| 16 | +we were putting out security-fix releases like [JRuby 1.6.7.2](http://jruby.org/2012/05/01/jruby-1-6-7-2). |
| 17 | + |
| 18 | +But as of today, it has been eight months since a proper JRuby release. That's too |
| 19 | +long. |
| 20 | + |
| 21 | +JRuby 1.7 has had two preview releases, the most recent a couple weeks ago. And |
| 22 | +JRuby 1.7 final is scheduled to come out toward the end of September. There are |
| 23 | +already users with 1.7 in production, and we're confident it's going to be an |
| 24 | +amazing release. But we also recognize that many users are still on JRuby 1.6 |
| 25 | +and may not be able to migrate for some time. |
| 26 | + |
| 27 | +_So, by popular demand, we're going to release JRuby 1.6.8!_ |
| 28 | + |
| 29 | +This release will be a bit of an experiment in that the core JRuby team will not |
| 30 | +directly contribute to it. We're looking to community members like you to |
| 31 | +backport interesting fixes from JRuby 1.7 (or just come up with new fixes, where |
| 32 | +the 1.7 versions require extensive work). We will run our usual slate of release |
| 33 | +testing and actually do the legwork of putting out release artifacts, but this |
| 34 | +version of JRuby is yours to make what you will! |
| 35 | + |
| 36 | +We'd like to get JRuby 1.6.8 out soon...like the end of next week. Here's |
| 37 | +how you can help: |
| 38 | + |
| 39 | +* If you are running a patched version of JRuby 1.6.x right now, sort out the |
| 40 | +patches you need and send us pull requests against the [jruby-1_6 branch on |
| 41 | +Github](https://github.com/jruby/jruby/tree/jruby-1_6). |
| 42 | + |
| 43 | +* If you know of fixes from 1.7 you need on your 1.6-based systems, do the |
| 44 | +same thing, ideally by using git format-patch so the original committer is |
| 45 | +associated with the pull request. |
| 46 | + |
| 47 | +* Make sure your changes pass at least the following test runs: "ant |
| 48 | +test-extended", "rake spec:ci_interpreted_18", and "rake spec:ci_interpreted_19". |
| 49 | +If the patch affects the compiler, you might want to run the "compiled" version |
| 50 | +of the "spec:ci" targets. |
| 51 | + |
| 52 | +We will then have a look at your pull request, merge it in, and look at a full |
| 53 | +JRuby 1.6.8 release in about two weeks. |
| 54 | + |
| 55 | +If you'd like to try out early builds of JRuby 1.6.8, you can download dev |
| 56 | +artifacts from [JRuby's CI server](http://ci.jruby.org/snapshots/1.6.x/). |
| 57 | + |
| 58 | +JRuby 1.6.8 will really, truly be the last in the 1.6.x line, so this is your |
| 59 | +chance to make it a good transition before JRuby 1.7. Now go forth and |
| 60 | +backport patches! |
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